Five new cell towers proposed in Old Lyme

Old Lyme - A subsidiary of the cell phone company T-Mobile and SBA Towers II are proposing installing five new cell towers in town.

T-Mobile subsidiary Omnipoint Communications' proposal calls for four towers that would range from 80 feet to 120 feet in height, First Selectman Timothy Griswold said.

A 120-foot tower would sit on property Amtrak owns between McCurdy Road and Route 156, Griswold said. A second tower, at 80 feet, would be installed at 387 Shore Road. Two 100-feet towers would also be erected at 232 Shore Road and at 61-1 Buttonball Road.

The goal of the T-Mobile towers is to improve cell phone reception for Amtrak passengers, according to Griswold.

The SBA tower, meanwhile, would sit on a 75-feet-by-75-feet piece of town-owned property north of the Cross Lane firehouse. The tower is expected to stand some 150 feet to 170 feet tall, Griswold said. The town would not only receive monthly rent for leasing the land to SBA but would also gain space on the tower to install town emergency communications equipment, he said.

The lease, as proposed in September, would be $1,400 a year to reserve the space before the cell tower is installed, according to a letter Ernie Lacasse, project director at SBA Network Services, outlined in a Sept. 9 letter to Griswold.

Once the building permit for the cell tower is issued, SBA would pay a monthly rent of $1,400, and rent would increase by 3 percent a year, according to the letter.

The property at 14 Cross Lane is deed-restricted for conservation and recreational use, Griswold said, so SBA must first obtain a waiver from the state Department of Environmental Protection to use the land for a cell tower.